Joe Higgins TD speaking at pro-choice Rally at Dail

At a ROSA meeting in October, Igor Iasine as guest speaker spoke about his first hand experience of LGBT repression in Russia, and the CWI’s campaign against this. Igor is active in Moscow, both in the LGBT movement, and in the Socialist Party’s sister organisation, the Russian section of the CWI. In this year, he has been physically attacked twice because of his activities.

Easter Monday night’s vigil in Tyrrelstown, west Dublin, for the slain 15 year old Nigerian lad, Toyosi Shitta-bey, was as uplifting as it was desperately sad.

The attendance of about 1,500 braved the unseasonal, biting cold to pay their tributes and make a powerful statement about the kind of society in which they want to live.

With important victories this year for the LGBT community in Ireland, it was with an air of celebration and progress that an estimated 25,000 marched in the Dublin Pride Parade this June.